First Milkmaid, January 15, 2012 The first wildflower of the season was spotted Sunday in the ditch of our driveway: milkmaid. Milkmaid is a member of the mustard (Brassicaceae) family whose ancestor is a wild cabbage. It seems late arriving, but I see in our notebook that actually it is just in time! These are the dates… Read more »
Carpet of calendula. The beautiful sunny days bring the wild calendula into full bloom. It is like a carpet of gold. The goats love it! They also have been known to do a little freelance pruning, so we have to be very careful taking them on walks through the vines and move rather quickly! Wild… Read more »
Watering new plantings. We remind ourselves that many years about this time we have a dry spell and worry: is this drought? global warming? or is it the normal ebb and flow of rainfall, year in and year out? We water new helichrysum plantings this week with overhead sprinklers to help consolidate the… Read more »
January 6 is celebrated as the date the Magi arrived with their gifts. On our ranch we do the Three Kings Preparation spray, a gift spray to the land and all who reside there, human and non-human alike. The following is a gift story —that might have happened! Once there was a herd of goats… Read more »
Starting at 11:30 pm on New Year’s Eve we grind frankincense, myrrh, and homeopathic gold in a mortar and pestle for a full hour. This is an aromatic activity, the scent intoxicating us with the change of the year, the past and the future all together in this very moment. It is a time to… Read more »
Spraying the “501” along the boundary line early morning. Inviting solar and cosmic energies This time of year we spray the perimeter of our land, first with “BC prep,” a biodynamic spray that has all the biodynamic compost preps plus the horned manure earth spray, or “500”, (late afternoon), then with the quartz crystal cosmic… Read more »
Field spray being activated with moisture overnight. Biodynamic Field Spray in Forest This evening we are moistening the biodynamic field spray to apply to forest areas in which we have cut dead wood or thinned brush. Tomorrow afternoon we will mix a unit of the field prep (two ounces… Read more »
People have asked… What the goats will be having for Christmas Dinner First Course —will be their wormwood concoction, which is an herbal wormer mixed with molasses. They love it! Once I had mixed it in the refrigerator. I caught my son taking the bowl out preparing to sneak “gingerbread cookie dough”. Needless to say,… Read more »
Manger SceneManger Scene
Manger Scene My sister and I called the nativity the “manger scene”. We would get the set out of the attic for the first Sunday in Advent. The scene had the holy family, of course, and an assortment of angels, but also a cow, donkey, two sheep, and a shepherd. My grandmother’s set was so… Read more »
P.I. enjoying the labors. Cutting Up Wood Donald and Ramon cut up downed wood and dead trees most days, wood that we season a year and burn for heat. This practice is carbon neutral if the wood is seasoned well and then burned hot in an environmentally certified wood stove. Splitting logs, which will then… Read more »
© 2025 Patricia Damery.
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